TRADITION
THREE CHECKLIST
MY ANSWERS
Tradition Three: The only requirement for AA membership is a
desire to stop drinking.
1. In my mind, do I prejudge some new AA members as losers?
Personally I do not but
I have see many who have judged others as losers even going as far as asking
why we waste out time trying to help people who keep going back out the answer
is simple when ever anyone reaches out I want the hand of AA to be there many
come and go but if they ask for help I will try my beat to help them
2. Is there some kind of alcoholic whom I privately do not want in
my AA group?
Again absolutely not to
me all are welcome as this tradition says it was
simplicity itself. At last experience taught us that to take away any
alcoholic's full chance was sometimes to pronounce his death sentence, and
often to condemn him to endless misery. Who dared to be judge, jury, and
executioner of his own sick brother? Thank God we are all inclusive never
exclusive
3. Do I set myself up as a judge of whether a newcomer is sincere
or phony?
I have to look at when I
came into the halls I know I did not know what I wanted at that time and I
don’t think I was to sincere but when I started to accept the teachings of the
program I like so many other did become sincere to judge someone a phony could
take their chances of recovery away from them sometimes quickly sometimes
slowly the promises will come true if we work for them
4. Do I let language, religion (or the lack of it), race,
education, age, or other such things interfere with my carrying the message?
When I carry the message
it is to insure I have one more day of sobriety I will not let these things
interfere with my own recovery why would I let them interfere with someone
else’s recovery after all I did not believe in much when I arrived at the doors
I came I came too I came to believe
5. Am I over impressed by a celebrity? By a doctor, a clergyman,
an ex-convict? Or can I just treat this new member simply and naturally as one
more sick human, like the rest of us?
Absolutely does not make
any difference who comes into the halls we are a very diverse group of people
from all walks of life looking for the same think to solve our common problem
and to carry the message to others who suffer from our disease only thing I get
impressed with is when the light goes off and another alcoholic finds the hope
to carry on with recovery
6. When someone turns up at AA, needing information or help (even
if he can't ask for it aloud), does it really matter to me what he does for a
living? Where he lives? What his domestic arrangements are? Whether he has been
to AA before? What his other problems are?
When anyone turns to AA
needed any information I am glad to reach out and help them be it questions, literature,
times and places of meetings, how Anonymity works, or the ten thousand other
thinks they may want to know about it is none of my business where he lives
what arrangements he has if he has been to AA before or what his other problems
are
© The checklist
is a reprint from June 1970 Grapevine
All E-mail Addresses are held in
Strict Confidence
